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Sunday, June 30, 2013

Here is a photo from my Introduction to Polymer Clay workshop, held last weekend at the Lake House Arts Centre.

I had six lovely students, who I believe left at the end of the day with a greater knowledge of this wonderful creative medium and plenty of inspiration. Due to the limited space in my two table top ovens, we concentrated on cutting flat shapes from colour blended, marbled and textured clay. Here is the students work, which I think is great, as four of them had never used polymer clay before.

Two new workshops are planned for next term - details will be published soon.

Friday, June 28, 2013

I started work today on a new sculptural piece. After sketching out a plan, I began creating a whole range of graded shades of clay, from purple and blue through to green and turquoise, for mosaic tiles to cover a ceramic form (the Maori 'fish hook' symbol).

I had decided to apply the mosaic tiles unbaked, so they would mould to the curved shape of the sculpture better. At the end of the afternoon, I decided to part bake the piece (which was not finished) that I had been working on most of the day. Then disaster struck...

Somehow, in the short distance from my work table to the oven, the piece toppled over, falling off the baking tile and smashing all over the floor. I will not repeat what I said, suffice to say I had just ruined a days work.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

My work on this sculpture has been very sporadic. I had to wait for the Viva Decor Precious Metal Colour (gold) to come from America, which I have used on the inner surface of the wave. It took quite a few coats but looks good, very metallic and better than in the photo. On the website I ordered it from, it said that this product was hard to remove but I discovered that it comes off if wiped with alcohol.

So I feel I need to give this sculpture a finishing coat. I could use Sculpey Glaze but am concerned that it is not that durable so perhaps Envirotex Lite resin would be better, but I am scared of spoiling it, so I keep putting it off.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Here is a glimpse of a multi-coloured mirror frame I am making for Dunkley's Craft Show. It is made of lots of strips of polymer clay in plain and pearlised colours, some streaked, marbled or rolled with metal leaf.